itt: stories of yr attempts to master tongues via DUOLINGO

Ah, you are right, f. hazel, it is in the second hardest category. Very hard to shake that feeling of “In just a short period of time I have learned a few simple greetings, phrases and grammar points — it’s all downhill from here!”

But easier than Arabic or Mandarin.

Japanese is pretty easy. Apparently Korean is easier?

Ancient Greek is still taught in schools here but less and less kids want to study it. I would love if Ophelia continues but it's up to her.

How do you all do it: do you randomly pick a theme or finish one before heading to the next one?

Japanese is not easy

I studied Japanese for three years, it feels easy at the very beginning (no subject/verb agreement, no plurals, very few sounds not already present in English) and then rapidly destroys your self-confidence (honorifics, counters, ten-year investment in memorizing Kanji if you ever want to read a newspaper headline)

^otm

Well, true, the honorifics are quite hard. But compared to dutch (and other languages) it felt easier. Much less exceptions. It feels more structured compared to my language. Granted, languages come easily to me.

Also I read a book on how the Japanese think. (Sociology, psychology,... and how that relates to the language.) It was eye opening and hence made studying the language easier for me.

Did you visit Japan or take any sort of certification test?

I remember my Japanese-as-in-from-Japan professor being asked if she was going to move back to Japan and her momentary abandonment of her usual formal-Japanese-professor aspect to exclaim "absolutely not, I hate living there!" and then she spent the rest of the class saying how great Japan was to make up for it. Not mentioned in textbooks: it really sucks to be a woman there.

Also I read a book on how the Japanese think. (Sociology, psychology,... and how that relates to the language.) It was eye opening and hence made studying the language easier for me.

― nathom, Tuesday, 14 May 2019 5:07 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I would like to read this book.

As for kanji, I find that relatively easy. I’m thirty weeks into a kanji learning programme and I can read most of what a 6th grader can a lot of what a high schooler can. Actually I’m slowing down that to bring my grammar and comprehension up to a similar level. It’s been a real boon to be able to read so much more, though.

Position of women in japan is pretty shocking, if slowly getting better.

Yeah, but aren’t you actually in Japan now? Don’t you think that makes it a wee bit easier as well?

I’m only occasionally in japan. In Australia till August. I’ve just started using an iTalki tutor which is helping.

日本語の文法を覚えるくらい難しいことはない。

I'll look in the attic, Ed. It's been two decades since I read it. Lol

Wat voor noten hebben jullie?

Meneer beer eet een peer.

I'm doing the Irish course and it's bizarrely obsessed with menus and apples.

Yeah. I looked at that one for a bit and it seemed to be missing something, not a lot of audio for one thing, and also the kind of stuff you are describing.

1000 day streak today!

¡Hoy he logrado una racha de mil días!

Waaaaht. Omg. I'm on day 120. Slipped off the top 20. Thanks to returning to FB. LOL

I'm a creature of habit and many days just do a quick couple of lessons, but more when I have time (I'm at 55000XP over those 1000+ days). I've always maintained my streak freeze, which has saved me a few times along the way when life got particularly busy.

I'm at the stage I want to purchase a grammah book bec it feels duolingo is fun but not informative enough (in that regard).

Sounds like a good idea.

This page might be useful for those willing to follow into the Modern Greek rabbit hole: https://www.foundalis.com/lan/greek.htm

Ophelia started Japanese! So proud of her.

Still waiting for https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/32196326/Improved-Norwegian-Course-Overview-and-F-A-Q

In the meantime just noticed Arabic on the app.

Only the app barely works anymore. Overtaxed servers, I assume.

Okay, it’s a go.

It’s a super tiny course :(

Tap the pairs

Hardly any discussions either. I saw a few but they were only a day or two old.

Seems like at least a good way to work the writing system.

Only the app barely works anymore. Overtaxed servers, I assume.

Doubt if it will enable me to catch up to Ed, but the Japanese course is much improved with the recent update. Although I think it may still be in A/B testing so not all will see.

The French course got a nice refresh. Having a lot of fun with the "Bad Day" and "Junk" modules.

What about “Bistro”?

Can I just say, I hate the Leagues? I mean, it was cute when there were a limited amount of them, and it was a race you could win. But it got old really fast - and now the leagues are just never-ending, like every time you complete one, another one appears?

Also, the "scoring" for the leagues is really unfair. I'm on Level 5 (the top level) for over half the available courses. The ones that are left are actually really difficult, because German grammar is complex.

Stupidly, because I was trying to "win" a league, I raced really fast through levels 3 and 4, so I did not absorb the actual grammar. Now I'm down to no lessons left, but I still need to review them, so I do a lot of reviewing.

It used to be that reviews and new lessons counted for the same amount of points - 10. Then you got up to 5 "bonus" points for new lessons. Then the "new" lessons got bumped up to 18 points, with "bonus" points on top of them. And now reviewing older lessons had been demoted to only 5 points. Like, it's actively penalising you if you are reviewing grammar rather than trying to absorb new lessons at an unfeasible speed.

At first the Leagues were useful, because doing 20 or 30 reviews a day was really GOOD for my German. But now it's really stopped being fun, and I wish I could opt out of them without feeling like I'm "losing".

yeah i try to not pay attention to them and just go at my own pace. too much gamification!

Same here, mostly

I complained, and discovered that it is possible to disable the Leagues:

https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/33039989

Though they made another new change today - vastly decreasing the number of "lessons" in the levels, especially the upper levels, and wow, has that been unpopular.

James Redd, sehen wir uns in Stuttgart?

Haha, leider nicht!

Don’t know how much it is helping solidify my understanding of any particular language, but going through these Duolingo stories like candy when they are available.

They have a kind of Encyclopedia Brown feel to them.

Helped me bust through to Ruby League. Hopefully I can hold on like George and Tammy. Oh wait.

Ruby, don’t take your League to town.

Scottish Gaelic coming soon: https://www.duolingo.com/enroll/gd/en/Learn-Scottish%20Gaelic

I haven't seen Duolingo mention the date, but it's launching on St Andrew's Day according to this very brief write up featuring one of the course contributors: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/oct/20/endangered-scottish-gaelic-online-lifeline-language-lessons-duolingo

The wait continue for Basque.

Hawaiian and Navajo courses tiny, but Welsh is pretty extensive, let’s hope Scottish Gaelic gets the same treatment. Yeah, Basque would be nice. Have been trying out this new app called Drops. More of a vocabulary trainer, don’t see any grammar, but still looks to be pretty useful.

I tried the French course for a few days recently because I wanted to brush up. I burned out really quickly. Could not handle the tedious repetition and the constant quizzes I had to take every time I lost health for not being able to differentiate between their pronunciation of "in", "en", and "on" for the thousandth time.

Is there an app with more variation?